Pre-Season Friendly: SuperSport United 2 Manchester City 0

Manchester City made a poor start to life under Manuel Pellegrini with a 2-0 loss to SuperSport United in which Yaya Toure came off injured.

SuperSport clinched victory on Sunday thanks to second-half strikes from Mame Niang and Kermit Erasmus as a sluggish City side produced a disappointing performance.

The bigger worry will be the injury to Toure though, after the Ivory Coast international limped from the field in the 84th minute.

Pellegrini named a strong starting XI for the encounter at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium, Port Elizabeth, with new signing Fernandinho, captain Vincent Kompany and France midfielder Samir Nasri all involved from the beginning.

City made the better start to the game and twice went close in the early going through Edin Dzeko and Aleksandar Kolarov.

Their best chance game after 20 minutes as Dzeko forced SuperSport keeper Ronwen Williams into a fine double save.

SuperSport held out until the break, which saw City change their entire team, with Toure, James Milner and Joleon Lescott among those thrown into the fray.

However, it was Cavin Johnson’s men who settled quicker in the second period, and they duly took the lead after 56 minutes. Substitute striker Niang headed past Costel Pantilimon after confusion in the City defence.

Milner went close to an equaliser on 73 minutes, but Erasmus had the last word for SuperSport eight minutes later, the forward bursting through the City backline before powering an unstoppable shot past Pantilimon.

Toure hobbled off soon after, capping a bad day for Pellegrini, whose players were not able to mount a siginifcant response as the hosts stood firm.